


I Will Follow You Into the Dark

by poisontaster



Series: Heart 'Verse [42]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sibling Incest, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-19
Updated: 2008-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6016563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam always knew his soul belonged to Dean.  He didn't expect to have to prove it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Follow You Into the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shotofjack](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=shotofjack).



> A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far way…wait, no, that's something else) I offered to write shotofjack something for her birthday. And foolish me, I insisted on a prompt. She gave me: _Heartverse. Dean's been missing 3 days and then Sam finds him._ Well. It started to turn into a case fic. And then shotofjack said, "No, no, no! Not a case fic! Just a ficlet!" And this is what happened. So. Somewhere in the vicinity of Year 18.

Sam can feel the unknotting of the muscles of his shoulder, his back, his neck in slow, blissful relief, even though Dean hasn't woken up yet.

 _He will,_ Sam thinks, sprawled haphazardly and loosely in the uncomfortable recliner next to Dean's hospital bed. It's not a prayer or plea this time.

Still not entirely tethered inside his skin, Sam's awareness of Dean, of Dean-in-his-body, has never been stronger or surer. Sam can _see_ the glow of life around Dean, dimmed halo, deeper and brighter at the heart of him, ruby-tinted there like blood. Like their blood, the blood that called Dean back to him.

Sam still doesn't know what happened. Dean and Peter had gone to Florida together to visit Peter's mom in the asylum. They'd heard she was getting better. An easy enough trip, even in Dean's condition. But that had been days ago.

Sam still doesn't know how they'd ended up in the hands of whatever thing or creature it had been, controlling the will o'the wisps. But having the answers seems so unimportant compared to having Dean back, alive and his—unquestionably his.

Sam's hand reaches to cover his brother's, still cool despite all efforts to warm him. Core temperature is up, though; the horrible chilled blueness faded into Dean's usual sunburn-and-milk. His freckles are burned darker across the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, random dottings across his eyelids and ears. Sam makes the acquaintance of all the new ones, unable to stop touching Dean, unable to stop watching light pool and swirl between them, trading from Dean to him and back again with the thoughtlessness of schools of fish swimming in concert.

After this many years at each other's sides—and occasionally each other's throats—it shouldn't surprise him that they are each other's. But it does.

Or. Maybe it's not surprise. Maybe it's amazement.

In the dark and rain, half-afraid he would drown, himself, but more afraid of not getting Dean back, Sam did the only thing he'd known to do, the only thing he could think to do, with the marsh-demon looking back at him with those gloating, golden eyes: he called.

The words make it sound much simpler than it was. Now, sitting in safety, with Dean alive and in his place next to Sam, Sam allows himself to worry just a little bit about the long-term consequences of what he's done.

But at the time, ripping the skin off his soul to make a light brighter and steadier than the pale reflections of the will o'the wisps seemed like the most sensible thing to do. Certainly far more sensible than letting them drown Dean and Sam living the rest of his life without him. That had been no option at all.

He worries how he's going to explain all this to Dean. Not that he'd do it any differently. At least not without a week or more to research. But Dean will be angry. And Dean will be pained that Sam went to these kinds of lengths. Again.

But Dean will be _Dean._

Sam puts his palm over his brother's heart, feeling it throb, slow and steady, regular as the metronome beat of the universe itself. Sam isn't conscious of doing anything special, anything _supernatural_ , but the light-pulse around Dean's heart brightens, strengthens. He feels Dean move under his skin, feels the purest essence of Dean touch him back, like when they curl around each other in bed.

 _Wake up,_ Sam calls, the same way he did in the dark, fetid heat of the swamp. _Come back to me. Wake up. Be here._

Bathed in that glow, looking through the luminescence of their combined soul-light, Sam isn't aware that he's closed his eyes until Dean's fingers fasten around his forearm. Sam looks down and finds Dean looking up at him, another touch, another connection, tying them, _anchoring_ them together beyond any ability to disentangle.

"We're too old for this shit." Dean's voice is a shock, rough and choked through the congestion in his lungs.

Sam laughs. He's too friable right now, too open; he doesn't have the defenses to do this, not with the ends of his soul fluttering like a loose tent flap in the breeze. The laugh cracks in the middle and his eyes burn with unshed tears.

Dean's fingers tighten a little. "Peter?"

Sam shakes his head.

Dean's eyes—alive and dead—flutter closed briefly. "Dammit."

There'd been nothing in Peter that would respond to the call of Sam's soul. And though Sam hadn't wanted the prickly teenager to come to any harm, he'd be lying if he said his concern had gone _much_ further than winning Dean back, bringing Dean back to him.

But that's Sam's burden to carry.

And Dean will never know.

"I'm sorry."

Dean shakes his head. "No. My fault. I didn't…it happened so fast." Another squeeze of his fingers against Sam's skin; it rings through Sam like a bell, just that simple touch. Dean's eye is glazed, the pupil huge and dark. Some of it is the drugs, Sam knows. Some of it is that Dean is opened too. Not as wide as Sam—not nearly—but Dean had to open the door to hear the call. Dean had to let Sam in, to find him through the dark. Bluntly put, Dean is blotto. Dean is half-out of his mind. Literally.

Which is probably why Dean says, "I knew you'd come. I tried to hang on, give you time to find me—us. But I knew you'd find me."

And it's not like Sam hasn't waited for nearly twenty years to hear _something_ like this from Dean. No, not at all.

And Dean probably won't even remember he said this tomorrow, when he's more awake, more lucid.

But tonight, he did. He said it. Better, Dean _meant_ it.

It rushes out of Sam like bubbles, lighting them both together until Sam's eyes tear from the brightness.

Just from the brightness.

Sam has no voice to speak with. Instead, he bends and brushes his mouth across the scar that disfigures Dean's forehead. The warm roughness of the skin feels so real, the most real thing Sam can think of.

"Don't go," Dean murmurs. There's no urgency to it, no desperation; it's just a request.

Only a request.

Only this and nothing more.

Sam pushes Dean at hip and shoulder and Dean slides over. It'll be a tight, squashy fit, the two of them mashed together in Dean's hospital bed but Sam's pretty okay with that and the dull thrum of Dean's pleasure through him says Dean is too.

Sam kicks his shoes off and crawls over the railing. It might be his imagination, but Dean already feels warmer. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay," Dean agrees tunelessly and leans his head on Sam's shoulder, closing his eyes.


End file.
